Theory and Practice
by Tozette
Summary: Ino and Sakura have a sleep over in the aftermath of the disastrous chuunin exams. Even when it's always about Sasuke, it's not, necessarily, about Sasuke. [InoSaku, femslash.]


Sakura's probably too old for sleep overs. She's a proper ninja now, so there's not really time for this sort of childish stuff. But Inoichi-san is busy at work following the disaster that was the chuunin exams, and Ino asked her, and...

Sakura misses Ino a little, in all honesty. Seeing her during the chuunin exam preliminaries made her more aware of that. Even though Ino is fickle and proud and a giant pain in the butt, she's also fierce and tenacious and the very best friend a girl could wish for.

Besides, it feels like forever since Sakura got a chance to wind down and do stupid, girly things. Case in point, she's sitting on the top of Ino's flower-printed bedspread while Ino paints her toenails. She's good at it, and at the moment she's using a tooth pick to draw bright pink swirls and whorls over the top of a base coat of green.

"I still can't believe you're on Sasuke-kun's team," Ino whines.

Sakura rolls her eyes, but Ino's hunched over the toes of her right foot and she doesn't see. "Maybe you should have been the best kunoichi in our graduating class, then," Sakura says innocently.

"Pff," Ino sniffs. "Yeah, based on your _theory_ marks. As if he'd ever want you, anyway," she scoffs. "Really, forehead, I've got nothing to worry about." Sakura doesn't so much as twitch. Their fight during the preliminaries burned away a lot of the bitterness between them, and now their sniping is largely by rote.

"I don't know," Sakura says in a hard, arch drawl, "maybe he likes smart women."

"Or maybe he likes _pretty_ women," Ino laughs. It's a cruel way to put it, but, well, they both know Ino's prettier.

"That counts you out, then, Pig," Sakura says anyway.

Ino squawks and smacks her on the knee with one hand. She does not, Sakura notices, smudge the polish on her toenails.

They continue in a companionable silence for a few moments, when Sakura, with her new wealth of Sasuke-experience under her belt, finally says: "Maybe he wants something else completely."

When she says it, she's not thinking of girls and prettiness and rivalry - she's thinking about Sasuke's anger, his absolute rage, back in the forest. She's thinking about that cruel chakra and those ugly markings.

Ino pauses, as though she knows exactly what Sakura's talking about - she should, since she was there, too - but she doesn't take it that way. "Mou," she says, exasperated, "What does any other girl have that one of us doesn't?" she asks, with an arrogance that's only half-joking. Ino always has had a lot of self confidence.

Sakura lets Ino's subtle redirection of the conversation go by without comment. She, too, should be making more of an effort to keep things lighthearted. She grins down at Ino's hair. "Maybe he wants somebody _experienced_," she says, rather boldly and all in a rush.

For a second Ino freezes, shocked that little Sakura actually said that, and then she looks wickedly up at her through her eyelashes. "_Sakura_, you pervert," she says teasingly. "We're not old enough for that sort of thing."

Sakura flushes. "Well!" she says, defensively, "Neither of us has ever even been kissed!" Because who knows what kind of experience Ino thinks she meant, "That is... maybe he'll want a girl who... um, knows what she's doing."

Ino huffs an amused laugh, one Sakura can feel on her toes, and they let the subject drop for now.

It takes a few minutes for Sakura's toenails to dry properly, following which they swap - Sakura isn't as good at the tiny fine details as Ino is, with her vines and tiny flowers, but she can do smiley faces and hearts and stars. Ino, bless her, never seems to care that she could paint her toenails better herself; that Sakura is the one to do them is the valuable part.

Conversation meanders from Sasuke (always a popular topic) to the efficacy of tetrodoxin used for faking death versus senbon, to dieting tips Sakura's mother has passed on from the other civilian women.

"I think she's trying to tell me I'm eating too much," Sakura adds, rolling her eyes as she paints a little heart with careful symmetry.

Ino scrunches up her nose. "That's stupid. Kunoichi work off a lot more than civilians."

Sakura nods without much commitment. They're different, she thinks, both of them, from when they graduated at the academy.

There's a few moments of silence, and then Sakura finishes the last of Ino's toes with a flourish. Ino inspects them and wiggles them gently, grinning. "Nice," she says, looking at the lady bug on one of her big toes. Big toes are bigger canvases for Sakura's artistic talent, and she finds them a lot easier. "Very cute."

There's another lull while they wait for her toes to dry, and then Ino looks at the ceiling thoughtfully. "Ne, Sakura..." she says after a few moments. "What if you're right?"

"About what?"

"Sasuke-kun," Ino responds promptly. "What if he..." she pauses. "Maybe we _should_ have experience."

There's a moment of silence.

"With _who_, Pig?" she rolls her eyes.

Ino grins. "Well, you have Lee-san- ow! Okay, okay," she laughs. "Not Lee-san."

"_Not_ Lee-san," Sakura says, although now she's thinking about poor Lee and his leg and... she still doesn't want to date him, but maybe she should visit him again soon. She shakes it off with effort. "Shikama-"

"If you finish that sentence," Ino threatens, lifting one fist.

"Exactly," Sakura nods. "So there's no point even really considering -"

Ino smacks her on the shoulder. It doesn't really hurt. "With _me_, obviously."

There's a pause.

Sakura frowns. "It's... that's not like kissing a boy, is it?" But now she's _thinking_ about it. Her thoughts are like a runaway train. She's never really... the possibility hadn't occurred to her. She's looking at Ino, at her spill of blond hair and her soft pink lips. The whole room smells like her, the sheets and the pillows and the - everything. It's not product, or flowers, or anything in particular. It's just Ino. It smells good, warm and familiar.

Ino, Sakura thinks, feeling surprised, actually is kind of cute. It isn't the way Sasuke is cute, no, there's nothing stomach-tightening and half-intimidating-half-thrilling about Ino's sparkling eyes and fierce smiles, but...

Ino makes a dismissive noise. "Kissing is kissing, Forehead. Don't overthink it."

Slowly, Sakura nods. "I... guess," she says.

"What," Ino asks, giving her a mean smile, "are you scared?"

"No!" Sakura says immediately, scowling. "I just... no," she shakes her head. "Come on, then."

Ino slithers her legs out from under Sakura and crawls toward her. They meet kneeling in the middle of Ino's bed and, after a moment of uncertainty and hesitation, Sakura - Inner Sakura, surely - thinks _what the hell_, and she leans in and presses her lips against Ino's.

It's... not really anything.

That's a bit disappointing, really. Maybe it'll be better with a boy?

"Hang on," Ino says, rolling her eyes as Sakura pulls away. "You're not doing it right."

Another kiss. This one is open-mouthed, sharing breath and a little wetter, with rubbing lips that feel soft and make Sakura's mouth sensitive with their gentle friction. That's... interesting. Nice, maybe.

Ino and Sakura look at each other.

It occurs to Sakura that neither of them really knows what she's doing. She's glad, suddenly, that she's doing this with Ino. Ino has already seen her do countless stupid things, one more hardly means anything.

"Um," says Sakura, "do you think..."

Ino ignores whatever she might have been saying and leans in again. They kiss. It's strange and exploratory, but after a second Ino sucks on her tongue and Sakura's insides go inexplicably hot.

She forgets to think about Sasuke, it's not Sasuke-kun's body pushed gently up against hers. It's Ino's nascent curves, Ino's bare legs rubbing against hers under her too-big tee shirt. Her hair is spilling forward and it trails down Sakura's collarbone and it feels amazing.

When her brain's working again she has her hands threaded through Ino's hair and she's breathing surprisingly hard. Her lips are wet. Ino looks...

...she's flushed. Wide-eyed. Her lips are glossy wet.

Ino is beautiful.

Sakura must look as poleaxed as she feels, because Ino recovers with a blink and then smiles smugly at her like she knows exactly what Sakura's thinking.

Sakura smiles helplessly back. Ino deserves her smugness, she thinks. She leans forward and kisses her again, and this time _she's_ in control. She nibbles Ino's bottom lip and sucks gently on her tongue, and Ino melts against her, pliant and willing. She makes a little encouraging sound.

Sakura draws back and breathes, struggling to disengage from Ino's hungry kisses. She doesn't really want to, to be honest, but she has the feeling that this is getting way out of hand.

So Sakura breathes deeply, draws back, tries to think sensibly about this.

Ino seems to recover much faster than Sakura, but she coughs nervously when she tosses back her hair. "See, Forehead? What did I tell you? Kissing is kissing."

Sakura looks at her for a few seconds. Then she nods. "Yeah," she agrees aloud, although now she doesn't think so. She doesn't believe it for a second.

There's an uncomfortable but thrilling heat pooling between Sakura's legs, and it's not Sasuke she wants to touch her there. She wonders if Ino is feeling the same.

But she doesn't say anything, and they go to bed and whisper softly in the dark to one another.

* * *

**AN** there are things that are wrong with this that people are sure to notice (and tell me all about), so I will tell you now that I'm aware of them. Chief among them are timeline holes. Also, yes, Mebuki is not a civilian. _Shhhh_.

This was part of a series of femslash prompts I'm doing for tumblr. If you want to find me there, I am **tozettewrites**.

Otherwise you're quite welcome to leave a review.


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